He had scarcely been a couple of days in Bologna when he saw, in an open carriage, Fabrizio and little Marietta.
"The devil!" he said to himself, "it seems our future Archbishop doesn't let the time hang on his hands; we must let the Duchessa know about this, she will be charmed."
Riscara had only to follow Fabrizio to discover his address; next morning our hero received from a courier the letter forged at Genoa; he thought it a trifle short, but apart from that suspected nothing.
The thought of seeing the Duchessa and Conte again made him wild with joy, and in spite of anything Lodovico might say he took a post-horse and went off at a gallop.
Without knowing it, he was followed at a short distance by Cavaliere Riscara, who on coming to a point six leagues from Parma, at the stage before Castelnuovo, had the satisfaction of seeing a crowd on the piazza outside the local prison; they had just led in our hero, recognised at the post-house, as he was changing horses, by two sbirri who had been selected and sent there by Conte Zurla.
Cavaliere Riscara's little eyes sparkled with joy; he informed himself, with exemplary patience, of everything that had occurred in the little village, then sent a courier to the Marchesa Raversi.
After which, roaming the streets as though to visit the church, which was of great interest, and then to look for a picture by the Parmigianino which, he had been told, was to be found in the place, he finally ran into the podesta, who was obsequious in paying his respects to a Councillor of State.
Riscara appeared surprised that he had not immediately despatched to the citadel of Parma the conspirator whose arrest he had had the good fortune to secure.
"There is reason to fear," Riscara added in an indifferent tone, "that his many friends, who were endeavouring, the day before yesterday, to facilitate his passage through the States of His Highness, may come into conflict with the police; there were at least twelve or fifteen of these rebels, mounted."
"Intelligenti pauca!" cried the podesta with a cunning air.
Chapter 2
A couple of hours later, the unfortunate Fabrizio, fitted with handcuffs and actually attached by a long chain to the sediola into which he had been made to climb, started for the citadel of Parma, escorted by eight constables.
These had orders to take with them all the constables stationed in the villages through which the procession had to pass; the podesta in person followed this important prisoner.
About seven o'clock in the evening the sediola, escorted by all the little boys in Parma and by thirty constables, came down the fine avenue of trees, passed in front of the little palazzo in which Fausta had been living a few months earlier, and finally presented itself at the outer gate of the citadel just as General Fabio Conti and his daughter were coming out.
The governor's carriage stopped before reaching the drawbridge to make way for the sediola to which Fabrizio was attached; the General instantly shouted for the gates to be shut, and hastened down to the turnkey's office to see what was the matter; he was not a little surprised when he recognised the prisoner, who had grown quite stiff after being fastened to his sediola throughout such a long journey; four constables had lifted him down and were carrying him into the turnkey's office.
"So I have in my power," thought the feather-pated governor, "that famous Fabrizio del Dongo, with whom anyone would say that for the last year the high society of Parma had taken a vow to occupy themselves exclusively!"
The General had met him a score of times at court, at the Duchessa's and elsewhere; but he took good care not to shew any sign that he knew him; he was afraid of compromising himself.
"Have a report made out," he called to the prison clerk, "in full detail of the surrender made to me of the prisoner by his worship the podesta of Castelnuovo."
Barbone, the clerk, a terrifying personage owing to the volume of his beard and his martial bearing, assumed an air of even greater importance than usual; one would have called him a German gaoler.
Thinking he knew that it was chiefly the Duchessa Sanseverina who had prevented his master from becoming Minister of War, he was behaving with more than his ordinary insolence towards the prisoner; in speaking to him he used the pronoun voi, which in Italy is the formula used in addressing servants.
"I am a prelate of the Holy Roman Church," Fabrizio said to him firmly, "and Grand Vicar of this Diocese; my birth alone entitles me to respect."
"I know nothing about that!" replied the clerk pertly; "prove your assertions by shewing the brevets which give you a right to those highly respectable titles."
Fabrizio had no such documents and did not answer.
General Fabio Conti, standing by the side of his clerk, watched him write without raising his eyes to the prisoner, so as not to be obliged to admit that he was really Fabrizio del Dongo.
Suddenly Clelia Conti, who was waiting in the carriage, heard a tremendous racket in the guard-room.
The clerk, Barbone, in making an insolent and extremely long description of the prisoner's person, ordered him to undo his clothing in order to verify and put on record the number and condition of scars received by him in his fight with Giletti.
"I cannot," said Fabrizio, smiling bitterly; "I am not in a position to obey the gentleman's orders, these handcuffs make it impossible."
"What!" cried the General with an innocent air, "the prisoner is handcuffed!
Inside the fortress!
That is against the rules, it requires an order ad hoc; take the handcuffs off him."
Fabrizio looked at him:
"There's a nice Jesuit," he thought; "for the last hour he has seen me with these handcuffs, which have been hurting me horribly, and he pretends to be surprised!"
The handcuffs were taken off by the constables; they had just learned that Fabrizio was the nephew of the Duchessa Sanseverina, and made haste to shew him a honeyed politeness which formed a sharp contrast to the rudeness of the clerk; the latter seemed annoyed by this and said to Fabrizio, who stood there without moving:
"Come along, there!
Hurry up, shew us those scratches you got from poor Giletti, the time he was murdered."
With a bound, Fabrizio sprang upon the clerk, and dealt him such a blow that Barbone fell from his chair against the General's legs.
The constables seized hold of the arms of Fabrizio, who made no attempt to resist them; the General himself and two constables who were standing by him hastened to pick up the clerk, whose face was bleeding copiously.
Two subordinates who stood farther off ran to shut the door of the office, in the idea that the prisoner was trying to escape.
The brigadiere who was in command of them thought that young del Dongo could not make a serious attempt at flight, since after all he was in the interior of the citadel; at the same time, he went to the window to put a stop to any disorder, and by a professional instinct.
Opposite this open window and within a few feet of it the General's carriage was drawn up: Clelia had shrunk back inside it, so as not to be a witness of the painful scene that was being enacted in the office; when she heard all this noise, she looked out.
"What is happening?" she asked the brigadiere.
"Signorina, it is young Fabrizio del Dongo who has just given that insolent Barbone a proper smack!"
"What!
It is Signor del Dongo that they are taking to prison?"
"Eh! No doubt about that," said the brigadiere; "it is because of the poor young man's high birth that they are making all this fuss; I thought the Signorina knew all about it."
Clelia remained at the window: when the constables who were standing round the table moved away a little she caught a glimpse of the prisoner.
"Who would ever have said," she thought, "that I should see him again for the first time in this sad plight, when I met him on the road from the Lake of Como? … He gave me his hand to help me into his mother's carriage… .
He had the Duchessa with him even then! Had they begun to love each other as long ago as that?"
It should be explained to the reader that the members of the Liberal Party swayed by the Marchesa Raversi and General Conti affected to entertain no doubt as to the tender intimacy that must exist between Fabrizio and the Duchessa.
Conte Mosca, whom they abhorred, was the object of endless pleasantries for the way in which he was being deceived.